[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[microsound] Re: Post-digital photography



Hi,

I think according to the criteria you've cited, you're meeting some amorphous result of 'post digital photography', but I think youre not taking the idea far enough. My comments earlier were addressing the fact that your use of the software seemed derivative (the effects youre achieving are fairly easy to get in just about any photoeditor). Your source photographs, when visible, weren't necessarily compelling, and the unidentifiable ones were edging towards abstract expressionism. Both are valid approaches to the issue, but neither really addresses the nature of the glitch or malfunction in digital photography. Your process appears to be fairly linear (take picture, load in software, tweak settings, save as). Open that up. What about taking the camera apart? Is subject matter important? What happens if you rephotograph your onscreen image? As a viewer/consumer, Im left with very little to go on but your intellectual argument. 

The criteria you cite Kims articles and the others, which are excellent treatises on digital art. However, while I find the concepts facinating, I already think they are becoming dated. I want to know what you're thinking now. You accurately compare the glitch in digital music to digital photography, which is also a very valid observation. But like in digital music, if I can listen to something and trainspot the VST being used, then it loses something. In my opinion, the software should become transparent to the finished piece, and in turn, the concept.

I like your ideas, and can see where you're going with it. I encourage you to continue, cant wait to see what comes next.

P



Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 18:47:25 +0000
To: microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: "Joseph Scott" <sarahmichellegeller@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Post-digital photography
Message-ID: <BAY113-F26A85075C1F8000BFAD2E5BC5C0@xxxxxxx>


--------

I guess you're referring to the photos I offered examples ? Photoshop 
wasn't 
used, neither were filters, but adjustments in contrast, resizing, etc. 
in 
other programmes were used. I consider adjusting the visual EQ to 
emphasise 
digital artefacts/noise beneath an image's surface to be equivalent to 
adjusting the audio EQ to expose the background artefacts/noise in an 
audio 
file. As far as I am aware, this is a common aesthetic in post-digital 
music, usually forming ?a critique of the perceived perfection of 
digital 
audio in that it exposes the flaws and illusion of 'perfect 
reproduction'? 
(Kim Cascone, ?Deleuze and Contemporary Electronic Music?).

However, your remarks confuse me ? surely software such as Photoshop 
exists 
to make digital photographs resemble film photographs, and so isn't 
using 
the same software to emphasis the differences between film and digital 
photos, or to create something else entirely, different to the approach 
of 
'digital photography'?

The example photographs are clearly the results of digital technology, 
but 
don't they question and only partially adhere to the ideology of 
'digital 
photography'? And isn't this exactly what ?The Aesthetics of Failure? 
and 
?Post-digital Aesthetics and the return to Modernism? by Ian Andrews 
(the 
two texts in which I encountered the term 'post-digital') discuss in 
relation to music?

IF there are Photoshop filters in existence that emphasise the digital 
aspects of digital photos, does this not reflect a move away from (at 
least 
some of) the principles of 'digital photography' towards a post-digital 
approach, much like the advent of audio software that doesn't imitate 
analogue equipment? In case you're unsure of what I mean, I'm thinking 
of 
software that enables effects such as time-stretching, buffer-freezing, 
etc., but there are probably better examples out there.

These aren't rhetorical questions: I'm genuinely unsure and interested 
in 
your opinion. I won't be offended if you aren't interested in answering 
and 
I thank you for already taking the time to respond once before.



 		
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Make PC-to-Phone Calls to the US (and 30+ countries) for 2¢/min or less.